Authors: Edmond Manning
Though his face expresses doubt, he squeezes my hand, giving me a slight nod, and a shock of his brown hair nods over his forehead too, in that sexy, clean-cut way. I’m here with Clark Kent, which is super hot. Sure, Superman boasts muscles and he flies, but I always wanted to fuck that nerdy reporter from
The
Daily Planet
.
“I need the two tools.”
He hands them over, and I work quickly to loosen the bolt. By day it appears firmly attached to the floor, like its neighbors, and it is. The nearby floor joints are another matter. I remember the night I rigged this. God, what a fucking night. Work, work, work, night guard! Scurry and hide. Work, work, work, night guard! Scurry and hide. But I had to know what it was like to play the button game.
When I finish this task, I take his hand in mine, and we cross over into the darkest dark, joined only by our slight physical contact. From the inside, I swing the door closed, extinguishing the moon’s ghostly presence.
I will not separate from him, not for a single second. We’re in a land between worlds now, this one and the next. If our connection snaps, if the tether is broken, the damage could be irreparable.
I turn my front to his and wrap my arms around him, his ragged breaths in my ear, his heart pounding against my chest. I turn us a half turn. With my knee, I nudge him back a half step, communicating my demands through caterpillar touch. With me guiding our movements, we take tiny, black footsteps over the abyss.
We inch slowly toward what I believe is the middle of the cell. I drop my arms to his waist and ease him against my chest. The complete absence of sound mirrors the lack of visual data. We huddle together, suspended by a midnight rope over an inky sea. The floor is gone; walls cease to exist.
We are nothing.
I lean in to kiss him, my breath informing him of my intent, so he leans the remaining quarter inch to meet me. With small shifts, I turn us clockwise, slow movements, junior high dance steps, our silent lips pressing softly and retreating. Only a hint of warm breath between us indicates when we’re apart.
“It was bound to happen, and eventually it did. A few kings started wondering what lay outside the ancestral kingdom.”
My voice shocks us both, a barely audible whisper, a butterfly flitting against his warm neck. In the absence of light, words become a living trail of undulating vowels and shiny, bronze consonants, a twisting coil of physical matter. When I rub his cock through his jeans, Perry gasps against my neck. The mere inhalation of breath is a tangible sound in this mausoleum.
“Various explorer types, such as King Wesley the Wonderer and Diego the Tourist King may have been first to leave. Of course, DuRay the Best Friend King might have been eager to meet those beyond the kingdom. Or perhaps King Mai the Curious withdrew first. You couldn’t stop him. He was one of those Midwestern, corn-fed boys. A bubba.”
We kiss. Perry’s okay with this part, the soft, luxurious kissing, each one a tiny breath of life.
I lean in, pushing him slightly backward again. We have made two full rotations, if I am oriented correctly, which means that in minuscule movements, I guide us toward a wall neither of us sees, aiming us right next to the cell door.
I think. I hope.
I practiced this ten or eleven times, turning myself slowly, testing how many steps it would take, counting how many were necessary to find the correct wall. I have to get us into position for the next part.
“They left the kingdom, one after another. They weren’t in hiding, these kings, or worried about protecting their borders. They were never in danger of attack because the tribe could only be found by other kings. Their very natures meant exploring was inevitable. Of course they left the kingdom. This was not the problem.”
Perry shifts back another step, and his forehead presses against mine.
“Their explorations of new worlds inspired greater courage, and wild tales were told of their exploits, but some lost touch with those qualities that made them kings. They forgot that they served a higher mission, lived in devotion to a kingdom where all men were necessary and equally blessed. Many became lost.”
Perry exhales in surprise as he touches the wall behind him. I continue sliding him slowly along the wall, a foot or two to the right, and he follows my every subtle nudging with impressive sensitivity.
I stroke his chest with my left-hand fingertips, graze his collarbone and neck as I trace his body. With my right hand, I trace the wall, searching for—ah, there, the seam of the door. Thank God. I would have been lost myself if I hadn’t found it.
You tired of those rats yet?
No. Concentrate.
“Every king mattered: the one who made toast well, and the king who awarded college scholarships. King Derrick the Aged, a man so ancient he could not walk to his own front door, was equal in importance to King Tyrol, the man who ran the largest city. The loss of any man was devastating, because what would the kingdom do without its one true king?”
“Wait,” Perry says as the words tease him, stroke him, as their small hands and spinning vowels caress him, tingle his skin.
No, Perry, no stopping now.
“Quite a few got lost, the Accounting King, the Turnip King and the King Who Loved Turtles. Kings who once maintained the golden orchards now worked at McDonald’s. More and more men disappeared, showing up in the terrible land of the Lost Kings. This is what the remaining kings called them, the Lost Kings or the Lost Ones. Men who forgot their gold, vanishing into a world that looked much like our own.”
Perry inhales deeply and pushes his chest into mine. My hands slide over his body to cup his ass, and the sensation surprises him, surprises his whole body.
“The kings sent scouts. Search parties. The Oil Change King and the King Who Was Gruff. But these men did not return. Once in a while a king might return with a newly found brother; arms around each other’s shoulders, they passed through the eastern gates, grinning fantastically under those ancient marble arches. But many never came back. Whenever a king left the tribe in search of lost brethren, the remaining kings met him at dawn on the grassy fields at the kingdom’s southern gates.”
Perry is probably already hallucinating; it doesn’t take long in here. Maybe he envisions kings on horseback, the sunbeams on fresh, dewy grass. I wonder if he recognizes any faces among the kings.
“The southern gates had been crafted into existence by metalworking kings, twisted gold, fashioned into tangled vines and flat, broad leaves reflecting every gleam of sunlight. Intertwining the gold, flowed brown copper vines, alive with barbaric intention. As the dawn re-painted the black grass to spring green and the gold metal leaves began to shine, two questions were always asked of the departing brother. The first was this: ‘What would you risk to find a lost king?’ Each king answered with what he was willing to sacrifice, and it was always worth more than anyone knew.”
I imagine a peach, its ripe juices trickling down my throat, as I say, “The second question asked was, ‘What if you find a lost king and he does not remember you?’”
Perry says, “Oh.”
His sound disappears, swallowed by darkness.
I feel his whole body twist slightly away and then melt deeper into me. His eyelids vibrate furiously against my neck. He surrenders to the story, the golden sparks drawing him in, calling to him. His heart beats slower. Coming home can do that.
“That is to say, what would you do if you found the King Who Fixed Toys? Or stumbled on the Lavender King in some corporation’s mail room?”
The words waft as autumn leaves in a Vermont forest toward the invisible floor, pooling at our feet.
He sags.
I unzip his jeans. This normally inaudible noise now drums like wooden blocks clattering together. Perry winces; I feel it against my body.
“When King Andrew, the Singer of Souls, was asked ‘what if he doesn’t remember you,’ he shouted as his horse galloped away, ‘I will show him my love. I will show him all my love.’ Andrew himself was so beloved that many adopted this as the standard answer to the second question.”
He moans, and in his vocalization I swear I see a pale apricot mist, fading, fading away.
“All my love,” I say, softer than sound, using the smallest amount of air that I can possibly use. I trace my lower lip up his neck, over his chin, and eventually curve his lips into mine.
Perry rests his head on my shoulder, exhausted and somehow defeated. Wait, why does that word come to me now,
defeated
? Why do I sense sadness? It’s sad, sometimes, when friends leave to go somewhere exciting, to see them ride out to embrace their destiny and yet yours seems elusive.
Why is Perry sad?
My fingers trace his face muscles, not disturbing their tensions but listening to them, feeling the mild acceptance that replaced his fear. I kiss the side of his neck, and instead of shivering, he rubs my head with his, nuzzling me in horse-like recognition.
I lick his neck with tiny cat-tongue strokes, rubbing his cock with my thumbnail, and he shifts, moans. I see a blue surge of electricity when I stroke his cock through his underwear. The clatter of his jeans hitting the floor sounds like yelling.
I kiss him again, fold his body into me. Without light to confirm our boundaries, we have no outlines; we are no longer distinct physical creatures, merely a mass of sensations and quivering skin. The only way to confirm that we are human is to keep grasping and caressing the planes of each other’s flesh.
When I lower myself to his cock, breathe on it, he arches his body, his hands trace my back, my shoulders, my head. I feel heat from his prick, feel it radiating in this dark, cold cell. It jerks, it vibrates. I see it without seeing it, a fascinating sensation I indulge by breathing warmth onto it and feeling his fattening cock bob near my mouth. When I lick the plump head, his breath jumps raggedly, spinning into wispy silence, darkness erasing the sound.
In a swift motion, I suck down his dick and instantly feel his breath on my back. He has collapsed forward, it seems, but I do not feel his weight. I sense the rusty maroon color of each breath, more Vermont leaves pooling on my back.
I bet Perry’s father would approve of this surreal experience.
I suck Perry slowly and think of the painting
Siren Song
. I hope that each long stroke feels like white silky wings, fluttering against his hard prison dick. I will use this fat stub of iron cock to free him. Maybe that imagery from that painting prophesized this moment, and I’m an agent for his father.
Yeesh. I don’t want to think about Perry’s father right now.
Refocus.
Perry’s cock lengthens, gaining a heft that increases my enthusiasm. The damn thing keeps getting fatter. Each trip down his shaft makes him twitch and bend as I feel him fold around me. I see lemon-lime zigzagging of his jerking breaths.
I suck his cock to the root, and he clasps my head with both hands, his arms vibrating. I bet he’d scream if he dared to create sound, but he teeters silently between worlds, the pleasure of tension and sweet agony of impending release.
I stop at this moment. I open my mouth around his cock and let it lie on my quivering tongue. I feel his heartbeat pulse through his wrist as I breathe heavily around his cock.
When it’s measurably softer, I begin again.
I suck him differently now, using long, powerful strokes as I infuse my love. I love this man. I worship this man. He responds, his touch deepens, his body greets the new rhythm I have created, and he meets my deep strokes with long, eager thrusts because we’re a surprisingly good match.
I wonder if he sees what I’m seeing. How much of our reality is shared without light to unite us?
I see powerful sparks, orange and pink, traveling from my mouth to his cock. If he’s anything like men I have loved, his cock acts as a megaphone to the rest of his body, so I yell my love through it, pink and orange love, sparking through him, reminding him, enticing him, increasing his ability to handle more, to give more, to want more. I take him so deep and with such fervor that our bodies merge into silky black liquid, working in mostly silent harmony toward an invisible explosion.
My hands snake up Perry’s torso, feeling his body writhe at my touch, stretching and folding with a sexual glow, each of his lingering hisses attuned with some unheard song. Tonight may be too much for him, this midnight sex in Alcatraz, but as long as we’re here, we’re going to make this a big one, an orgasm that reminds us how lucky we are to be men.
Far away, a metal door clangs open and Perry’s body clenches, almost enough to make him come.
I rise immediately and clasp a hand over Perry’s mouth, which, sure enough, has opened to scream.
His chest heaves rapidly, and I grab his soaked, drooling cock to distract him.
I say, “Be quiet.”
Despite their soft tenor, I’m sure my words sound like yelling, as if I’m deliberately trying to draw the night guard’s attention.
“I have to open the door. Stay here. Nod if you understand.”
My fingers feel the nod.
I relinquish my hand on his cock but keep one hand on his chest until I push the door half-open.
No sound.
I should hope not. Had to file down that bottom right side with a metal sander for three nights back in 1991. Or was that ’90?
The sudden appearance of ghost light on the cell floor almost blinds us; I can see Perry’s eyes clamp shut. But there’s light again, so I can release him; we’re back from the abyss.
I whisper, “He’s not in our row so we have a minute or two. Keep quiet, Perry, and we’ll get through this.”
I don’t have time to fix the door, just enough to open it all the way and press the bolt into the floor, make it appear close to normal. The odds are slim that he notices anything. He’s the guard, Vin, he is the night guard. I’m only gone for a few seconds to prop the door and then return to Perry’s side.
The footsteps move somewhere inside the prison, and Perry pants with terror, his body vibrating against the back wall. I maneuver him forward so I can stand behind him and pull him into me. I pull his naked ass against my jeans and clamp my hand over his Adam’s apple, loosening my fingers so he can breathe.